


In the Garden

by geekmama



Series: Aftermath [16]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 22:59:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12736038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekmama/pseuds/geekmama
Summary: The calm after the storm, in part 14 ofAftermath.





	In the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Part 14 of 15 of [Aftermath](https://archiveofourown.org/series/848343).
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> ******************************

“Better now?” came a familiar and much-loved voice, and both Molly and Millicent looked up to find Sherlock coming toward them. 

Millicent rose to her feet as he approached, and for once Sherlock did not balk at being embraced. Molly smiled her approval, and he returned the smile, though it seemed a bittersweet expression. 

Millicent eventually ended it, but then took him by the shoulders and peered at him closely. “You’re certain you are alright? She didn’t harm you? Any of you?” 

“Physically we’re quite intact, though John may get a head cold out of it. He was stuck in that well for hours. But having it all out in the open will be for the best. Even Mycroft knows that.” 

“Mycroft,” Millicent repeated, and sighed. “I suppose you were right. He _was_ trying to spare us -- though Rudy’s motives were likely less pure. I always felt Mycroft was more influenced by Rudy than was good for him.” 

“I have to agree with you on that point,” Sherlock said. “I never liked my uncle, I’m sorry to say.” 

“You’ve no need to be sorry for anything,” Millicent said with conviction. “Although I do think you owe _Molly_ a great deal. She assures me that announcement about the two of you was not a merely a plan to distract me from the less happy reason for this visit, and I sincerely hope for your sake she was correct.” 

“I promise you, she was – which reminds me.” He lifted a brow. “Did you bring it?” 

“Yes, of course.” His mother reached into the left pocket of her trousers and brought out a small blue velvet pouch with silken drawstrings. She handed it to her son with a mischievous twinkle. “Your grandmother would be extremely pleased.” She glanced at Molly and said, “I’ll leave the two of you alone for a few minutes. I must see Mycroft and… well, not _apologize_. Clarify matters, I suppose.” 

“He does try very hard,” Molly said, unable to help feeling sympathy for the eldest son of such a family, as well as for his mother. 

Millicent nodded. “He always did,” she said, and directed a somewhat pointed parting glance at Sherlock. 

They watched Millicent go back into the house, and then Sherlock turned to Molly. “Well, that went off better than I’d hoped, thanks to you.” 

Molly shook her head. “All of us did our best. It was -- _is_ \-- a dreadful situation. Do you really think Eurus will respond to your playing?” 

“I think she might. It’s worth a try, at any rate.” He studied her narrowly. “Molly… you do understand that I have to try to reach her? I promise you, I will be careful.” 

Molly tried to smile. “I… I can’t help worrying about you,” she said simply. 

He took her hand. “Come and sit here with me a moment.” He took in the ornate bench with its overarching plethora of roses. “An appropriately romantic setting for a proposal.” 

“Are you going to propose to me again?” she said with a chuckle as she sat down. “It does seem a more appropriate spot than the Maida Vale tube stop.” 

He sat down beside her. “Well, I thought our understanding was more or less a given, considering all that has passed between us these last two days, let alone the previous six years. But if you’d like I can arrange something even more formal, perhaps when we’ve shopped for a set of rings?” 

This prosaic speech inspired both tears and laughter, and Molly threw her arms about him for a moment -- reveling in the way he returned the embrace and kissed the top of her head. Then she pushed away, swiped a tear from her cheek, and said, “You are an impossible man, and I had no idea I could love someone so very much.” 

He smiled, bittersweet again. “The feeling is, as you now know, entirely mutual. It quite terrifies me.” 

She knew what he meant. Accepting the joy of love meant accepting the possibility -- really the certainty -- of anguish.  She took up his hand and said, “I know,” then drew that beloved hand to her lips. 

But he pulled his hand away and took her in his arms and kissed her properly this time, and only broke off to slip his arms beneath her and pull her onto his lap. 

She reached up and caressed his cheek, then closed her eyes as their lips met again. She had waited so long… too long… and now could not get enough of him. 

Apparently he was of the same mind for after a bit he moved to run kisses across her cheek, then murmured against her ear, “Can’t we go back to bed yet?” 

She laughed, and sat back a bit to look at him. “Is that what you’d like? At this moment?” 

“God, yes!” he exclaimed. “Let Mycroft and Alicia deal with my parents. At least for now. They’ve taken up far too much of our morning as it is.” 

“Well, fortunately for you, I believe your mother is very perceptive about that sort of thing.” 

He gave a grimace of exasperation. “Yes, you’re right. My father, too. They’ve always been embarrassingly _frisky_ for a couple that one might presume to have reached an age of discretion and sobriety.” 

“Oh, dear!” Molly said, trying subdue her amusement. “You really are doomed to disappointment on that score. They have so many virtues, but not those, I’m afraid.” 

“No, I suppose not. But on the other hand, my mother has an excellent memory. I sent her a text yesterday morning, before they left for London, and she brought this for me to give to you.” 

He’d reached into his pocket and now handed her the tiny blue velvet bag his mother had given him. She opened it and carefully drew out a gold ring, a beautiful, old fashioned scrollwork setting with a small but very fine square-cut ruby in the center, flanked by two tiny diamonds. “Oh! Sherlock, it’s lovely! And it was your grandmother’s?” 

“Yes. I always liked the ring, and my mother told me when I was a boy that I could have it if ever I found a woman I intended to marry. Ha! Never thought that would happen -- though I did imagine you wearing the ring years ago. It came to me in a dream, I think, before I returned to England and found you already engaged. I remember your cherry patterned jumper featuring in it--I may have been a bit out of it for some reason. Not drugs!” he said quickly. “Or, none I _chose_ to take, at least.” 

Molly stared at him, aghast. 

“Now don’t look like that! That was ages ago.” 

“Oh, Sherlock,” she said, close to tears at the thought of what he might have gone through in those years he’d spent destroying Moriarty’s web  -- and it seemed to her now that she had betrayed both him and herself in becoming involved with another man. “Y-you really thought of me when you were away? In… in _that_ way?” 

He gave a short laugh. “That was all that kept me alive at a couple of points!” But then he said, dismayed, “No, now really, don’t _cry!_ ” 

But she couldn’t help it. She leaned against him, clutching the lapel of his suit jacket, and wept into his shoulder. He scolded her for her sudden weakness, but very gently, and held her as though she were something precious as he did so. He also thoughtfully pried the ring from her hand and traded it for the box of tissues, which had fortunately been left on the bench. 

It was some minutes before she was at all recovered. It was not an easy matter to quell the ghosts of the past, and the present--the events of this day–these two days, and nights--had rendered her surprisingly weary. 

She did manage it, finally, and sat up and blew her nose once more. Then she gave a watery chuckle and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t seem to have much fortitude left.” She looked up then, rather shy and ashamed of herself, and to her delight his smile blurred before her eyes and he kissed her again. 

A tender kiss, but with a latent passion underlying his whole aspect. “Oh!” she whispered at one point, when he paused for a half second, but then was swept away again. By the time he ended it, she felt almost light-headed. “You may be right,” she murmured. 

“About what?” 

“About going back to bed.” 

“Of course I’m right,” he said, smugly. “We’ll both need a long nap. _Afterwards_.” 

And she laughed aloud at that, in joy and wonder. 

He grinned and then said, “Give me your hand.” 

There was no implied _please_. 

He knew she was his. She had been for a very long time. And now… now he would claim her. The thought piqued her feminist sensibilities. Her _amour propre_. 

And yet… she could deny him nothing. 

She sat up and disengaged her arm, which had been tight around his back, and solemnly gave him her left hand. 

He took it, and slipped the ring on, carefully. Looking at it in all its perfection, he said, in a quiet voice, “It’s not your engagement ring, obviously. More a simple acknowledgement of… of what lies between us. But I wanted you to have it right away. To have something meaningful. A symbol of my promise to you, and… my hope.” He lifted her hand to his lips, pressed her fingers briefly to his cheek, then raised his eyes to hers with a small sigh, as though quite resigned to his fate. “I love you, Molly. You don’t mind me saying it so often, do you?”

She slid her hand up and around, and drew him close. “I will _never_ mind you saying it,” she replied, her breath soft against his lips, just before they kissed again.

 

~.~


End file.
